About Me

In the name of Allah (God),
I have decided to dedicate sincere and honest endeavour in helping to establish the Truth by helping to defend the good name of the last Prophet (pbuh) of Allah as well as refuting many other lies and misconceptions that are being disseminated by the insincere, wicked, deceptive, intellectually and morally bankrupted individuals as well as the ignorant individuals who all share a faulty characteristic; a blatant disregard for the Truth.
I ask Allah to purify my intentions and save me from doing any good action for self-aggrandizement, as all actions are judged by intentions. May Allah Love me, and bless this work. My message to any non-Muslim reading this is thus:
Please give Islam a chance, research it for yourself and allow Muslims and Muslim sources to be your primary resources you refer to when studying Islam rather than basing your views on agenda-motivated Islamophobic sources.
O Allah, You are Al-Wadud (The Loving)...please O Allah love me and bless all those Muslims and non-Muslims who read this.
Ameen

Friday, 23 December 2016

Is Saying “al-salaamu ‘alayka ayyhu’l-nabiyyu" in Tashahhud Shirk?

This is a low-level internet polemic which really involves ignorance or a complete shut-down of any desire to accurately represent the Muslim faith on the part of the person making such an argument.

The polemicist isolates one statement in a part of the Muslim prayer called the tashahhud:
“al-salaamu ‘alayka ayyhu’l-nabiyyu (peace be upon you, O Prophet)”.

The polemicist then proceeds to make a song and dance about it claiming it means Muslims pray to Muhammad. Yep, that’s their argument!

A few thoughts on this:

1. The Muslim prays to God alone. In fact, the Salah is commenced with the recitation of Surah Al Fatihaha. Verse 5 is rendered in English: “You [God] we worship, and You [God] we ask for help”.

Thus from the very beginning of the prayer it is evident the prayer is to Allah.
Why would Muslims later on in the prayer decide to, all of a sudden, start praying to Prophet Muhammad especially given the fact the Quran teaches against this action?

The Quran teaches us not to invoke another with Allah. Only Allah should be invoked.
“So invoke not with Allah another ilah (god) lest you be among those who receive punishment” [Quran 26: 213]

And we are taught only the Creator and not the creation should be invoked in Quran chapter 16:

20. Those whom they (Al-Mushrikun ) invoke besides Allah have not created anything, but are themselves created. 21. (They are) dead, lifeless, and they know not when they will be raised up. 22. Your Ilah (God) is One Ilah (God Allah, none has the right to be worshipped but He). But for those who believe not in the Hereafter, their hearts deny (the faith in the Oneness of Allah), and they are proud.

2. If the polemicist is consistent with this argument then they will also say we worship ourselves and other Muslims at the congregational prayers too as the sentence after in the tashahhuud goes “peace be upon us...”!
Obviously we aren’t worshipping ourselves and those in the congregation with us! We don't believe those in the congregation can hear our prayers!

3. The polemicist doesn’t even understand the statement “al-salaamu ‘alayka (peace be upon you)” – it’s obviously not a prayer to Prophet Muhammad. Shaykh Uthameen explained this very simply – to be honest you really don’t need a shaykh to tell you that statement is NOT a prayer to Prophet Muhammad p but rather a supplication to Allah to bless the Prophet:

Are the words “al-salaamu ‘alayka (peace be upon you)” a statement or a supplication? I.e., are you stating that the Prophet (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him) is in a state of peace or are you asking Allaah to grant him peace?The answer is that it is a du’aa’ (supplication) in which you are praying to Allaah to send peace upon him. This is a statement which is serving as a supplication. [Source]

We say: if you send salaam upon him from the farthest ends of the earth, your salaam will reach him, because Allah has appointed angels who travel about the earth, and if anyone sends salaams upon the Messenger (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him), they convey that salaam to the Messenger (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him). So if we say now, “O Allah, send blessings and peace upon the Messenger of Allah,” our salaam will be transmitted to him. In prayer we say, “Al-salaamu 'alayka ayyuha'l-nabiyyu wa rahmat-Allahi wa barakatuhu (Peace be upon you, O Prophet, and the mercy of Allah and His blessings),” and the salaam is transmitted to him…

For the hadith he refers to concerning the angels transmitting the salaam to the Prophet:

The Messenger of Allah sal Allahu alayhi wa sallam said: “Allah has angels who go around on earth, conveying to me the salaam of my ummah.” [Sunan Nasaa'i, Saheeh Al-Albani][Source]

5. The polemicist again doesn’t show a familiarity with the prayer as after two sentences after the statement in question the Muslim asks Allah to send blessings upon the Prophet in a similar way Prophet Abraham was blessed:

`Allahumma salli `ala Muhammadin, wa `ala aali Muhammadin, kama sallaita `ala Ibrahima wa ala aali ibrahim...[O Allah, send your graces, honour and mercy on Muhammad and the family of Muhammad as you did with Ibrahim and his family...]

Now think about it, if the Salah involves "praying" to Muhammad then why does it after two statements go to a supplication beginning with "O Allah" to bless the Prophet? It’s obvious the prayer is to Allah!

On a side point, the asking of blessings to be sent to Prophet Muhammad p is in accordance with the divine command in the Quran (ref. 33:56). It actually benefits us to ask as we receive blessings for it! It’s very interesting to note the Bible talks about those who bless Abraham in a positive way, according to the Bible, God says this, whilst addressing Abram (Abraham):

I will bless those who bless you,and whoever curses you I will curse; and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you. (Genesis 12:3 NIV)

The fact that our Prophet taught us to mention "like Abraham" when asking Allah to send blessings on our Prophet maybe in reference to this special status Abraham had as parsed from Genesis 12:3.

[May Allah send more peace and blessings upon Abraham and Muhammad pbut]